Is blockchain necessarily more secure than centralized solutions?

Hearthy Co.
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read
A racoon watching your wallet

In recent times we are seeing some solutions based on blockchain that are promoted as improvements in data security, responding to the need, so current, to improve the IT security of organizations.

The truth is that any technician familiar with the most popular current blockchains will tell you that the typical security of these projects is between low and zero. Compare Ethereum with a platform like Swift. In the last 12 months Ethereum has had leaks of money in favor of hackers, counting only thefts with more publicity of about $ 80M, Swift, where they do a good part of the international money transactions also suffered an attack by An amount of 81M. But Swift moves 5 trillion dollars per day, and ethereum and bitcoin together about 2,9Billions.

We understand that, as far as evidences are concerned, centralized systems are today safer than some of the blockchain-based systems. Bitcoin, as always, is a separate case, the relative simplicity of its design, the immutability of its transactions and an already sufficient network of miners and developers has made it very armored, but not always useful for operations.

When we first started working on Hearthy’s security, we realized all the uncertainties we have in bringing medical data to the blockchain, especially in terms of data handling, securitization and monetization. We are working on it, but it is still a process, saying that it is completed, that you have a solution that can meet the basic security requirements in any computer system is something that can not be said lightly, requires a formal demonstration and a test in production for at least a few months.

In Hearthy we are thinking about it, as fast as we have the testnet we will try to pass as many serious security audits we can pay and generate a system of bounties for bugs. The truth is that in my opinion none of the methods is infallible, only time, testing and generate in the company a SAFETY CULTURE applied to all processes results in something that can work.

But please, stop selling blockchain-based modern technologies as impenetrable and 100% safe, they are not, and mislead the new, promising improvements that can hardly be met.

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